They may not mean to, but they do - 1. One

Keith had nearly finished and could pack up for the day; only a couple of days' work left, and the worst of the job was over. It had been quite a challenge; the house’s owner, Greg was an architect and had designed all the renovations himself, combining the old stone-built farmhouse with stylish modern elements and lots of hi-tech gadgetry, all of which required wiring which was where electrician Keith came in. But it wasn't just a case of cutting a channel in the walls for the cable and plastering over, Greg was far more demanding. The siting of every single cable had to be discussed, even the location of the distribution board had to be examined in great detail. The modern walls were OK, but all the old stone ones were a nightmare, particularly as many were unplastered or the plaster left bare. No room to hide there, and it had taken all of Keith's obsessive neatness to make things right.

But it was a job that he wanted to do well, his first major job as an independent contractor and his first chance to show what he could really do. There was some satisfaction in the results too, every single light-fitting and electrical socket was where it should be, and there wasn’t a cable out of place. If Greg and his husband Bart were happy, then more jobs of a similar type might flow and Keith would not have to rely on the endless supply of boring work from Tashbrook Developments, all house conversions and new builds aimed at young buyers, cheap and nasty with no interest apart from the need to get the job finished quickly.

Keith had had a good job with a house builder whose work across Yorkshire was aimed clearly at the upper market, not of great interest but you were rewarded for a job well done and he had made some good mates. But after a few years, he got itchy feet, and his mate Oscar's plan to start his own business had seemed a good idea. But it all came crashing down after just six months, leaving Keith out of pocket, out of work and living in a strange town. Luckily his work had been noticed, he easily got regular work from Tashbrook, which paid even if it was boring. Helping a mate out had led to Keith working for Greg, and the architect asking him to do the electrics on the redevelopment of their house after the planned contractor had pulled out.

Keith had never worked for a gay couple before; Greg and Bart were in their late 30s and very much like any normal married couple except both were men. So far Keith's experience of gay men had been limited, and this was his first glimpse of people living a regular life who just happened to be gay. Greg was exacting but fair, and he appreciated good work. Now that work on the main house was just about finished, the couple had moved back in. Once Keith finished tonight, he had a bit of work for Tashbrook and would then return to do the outbuildings. These were being converted into a studio for Greg and lettable units, probably for holiday lets.

Keith had looked Greg up and discovered that the guy's main work as an architect was in building large-scale offices and industrial stuff all over the UK, but this house was very much his and Bart's passion project. It was a big place, originally an old stone-built farmhouse a few miles outside Norton, away from Leeds city centre. The house had a rear extension which was probably even older than the main building, and it all sat in a small amount of land which woefully needed landscaping and had suffered from the wheels of too many delivery trucks. Currently, the front was simply parking space, and to the rear, a motley array of outbuildings, once part of the farmyard but now showing signs of a variety of subsequent uses and misuses.

Greg and Bart had stripped away a down-at-heel 20th-century lean-to extension and replaced it with a sleek, modern structure, more glass than stone, and the older rear extension had been upgraded to include a huge kitchen which mixed traditional farm-house with nice clean modern lines, a style Keith decided he liked. His experience of building so far had been cheap plastic boxes for the ordinary folk and high end 'Footballers Wives' stuff, with the odd, cute cottage. This was something else, lots of old features but nothing plastic, nothing cute and nothing glitzy. Keith liked it, liked the way the old walls contrasted with the satisfyingly sleek lines of the new work. Now, if he could ever afford a house...

He shook his head; he had to concentrate on his work, otherwise, at this rate, he would never own his own house.

He snapped the last of his tools into his box and stood up. He would be back tomorrow for some finally snagging but that was it. He walked out of the building, straight into Greg. Who was stark, bollock naked.

"Shit, sorry, I didn't realise you were still here."

Red-faced and shocked, Keith tried not to look at Greg's naked body, 'Yeah, had some last-minute stuff to finish."

"Thanks, much appreciated. Look hang on a sec’ there whilst I make myself decent.". With that, Greg disappeared back into the house.

Keith stood there feeling a bit stupid, after all, there was nothing wrong with being naked in your own private back yard. But Keith felt his reaction had been completely over the top, yet a guilty part of him admitted that the sight of Greg’s well-put-together naked body had done something for him. Thankfully Greg returned, decently covered in a pair of shorts, and continued the conversation.

"Look, we appreciate how much extra effort you've been putting in for this and the results are stunning."

Keith tried not to look embarrassed and gave a shy smile of thanks.

"As the weather seems to be promising, Bart and I thought we might give the pool a christening, our first time this year. Would you like to join us? It’s just a glass of wine by the pool and a dip if you can face the cold water! The thing is, we normally do it naked; you can keep something on, but you'd need to cope with us in the nuddy." Here Greg gave a sort of shamefaced grin as if being naked was something odd and in Keith's world, it was. Naked was something you were in the bedroom and bathroom or the changing rooms after footy or swimming.

He looked at Greg's eager, open face and thought of how nice it would be to have a civilised drink with clients by the pool. Looking down, trying not to stare at Greg's crotch, Keith nodded and said thanks. He'd just dump his stuff and come over. Greg grinned and said that they'd have a glass waiting for him.

By saying yes, Keith wasn't just getting over an element of embarrassment. He was taking a step in admitting to himself that he found Greg and Bart attractive; that seeing them naked was exciting. Sexually exciting. Not that Keith wanted to do anything with them, he wouldn't dare. But to say to himself that he was attracted to them, and yes had fantasies about them, was to admit that he was gay, and he wasn’t quite ready to do that. Yet.

-oOo-oOo-

“Well, know what? I wouldn’t mind doing to her!”

The girl walking past, hand in hand with a young man, was hardly above average apart from the skin-tight t-shirt showing off her substantial bosom. Keith would never have dared to say that the girl did nothing for him, that her male friend was far more attractive. He pretended to pay attention to his work mate’s usual coarse comment; the guy was always keen to promote his aura as the great lover when in reality Gus was a rather ordinary lothario at 35 now running to seed. The blokes on the site tended to ignore him, or sometimes egg him on if the mood took them.

It was break-time, and everyone had gathered in what was laughably called the mess (in reality a cramped portacabin) for a brew. They were building a whole range of houses on the estate, all thrown up quickly, so Keith was working alongside other trades, everyone moving gradually through the buildings. He rather liked having others around, but moments like this sometimes unnerved him.

Today it was Hughie who responded, “I don’t know about her, but I know what I’d like to do to him”. There was a gleam of delight in Hughie’s eye, it was clear he was referring to the girl’s male companion. There was a snigger and a shocked silence, then everyone returned to work. The guys were not explicitly homophobic, just woefully unaware of what else was going on around them and profoundly myopic in their world view. It tended to be casual cruelty rather than deliberate aggression.

But Hughie had a dead-pan humour to him, and didn’t make a big thing of being gay, but nor did he hide it either. He was simply one of the blokes, who happened to like boys. When Hughie had joined, some of the older guys had tried to whip up a bit of mistrust, but most of the lads didn’t buy it. Hughie was well-liked and frankly, too big and scary. He was a massive bloke, tattooed with close-cropped balding hair. Not the stereotype of a camp gay man.

Keith was far too nervous and uncertain to talk to the bloke about being gay. When it came to his own sexuality, he was still a mass of conflict and uncertainty. But Hughie’s example showed him that you could be gay in his world, it was just another part of you.

Keith's Dad had died the other year, the two of them still unreconciled. But part of the old man still lived on in Keith’s head, constantly telling him that the so-called ‘gay lifestyle’ was worthless, and homosexuality was evil.

It was years since he’d lived with his Dad, but the memories still haunted him, the trauma of knowing that he couldn’t be gay, that it wasn’t a viable option in his world. It had never occurred to him that he could leave, that there were plenty of guys living lives, happy lives, fulfilled lives, who never had to worry about who they fell in love with.

-oOo-oOo-

Greg and Bart were lounging by the pool when Keith got there. It wasn't grand. The pool had been put in by previous owners and Keith knew that Greg had plans for it. Greg’s new studio would back onto the pool and the other buildings around it were ear-marked for letting, making the pool an added attraction. But until that work was completed, Greg and Bart were going to use it just for themselves. There had been a changing room made out of an old garden building, but that was going to be part of Greg's studio and had already been stripped out. Keith had stowed his gear in the van and taken his shirt off. Feeling a bit shy of wandering around in the nude or in his kecks, he had stayed dressed and slipped out of his clothes by the pool and then walked over.

Was this such a good idea? Keith was feeling nervous and alarmed. There was the being naked thing, trying to pretend that walking around with your bits dangling was an everyday occurrence. And then there was what he thought of as ‘the other stuff’, the thoughts and feelings that he usually tried to keep firmly locked up. The idea that his interest in the two naked bodies in front of him might be rather more than sheer curiosity. Naked men were, what?

When dumping his stuff in the van he’d had something approaching panic. Stupid or what? He’d talked himself down. It wasn’t a case of worrying about anything happening, he was sure enough about that. It was anxiety that he’d be ‘found out’, it was an anxiety that he’d carried around since his teens and he was now 26. His Dad was dead, and he doubted that there were many people who cared whether Keith liked girls or guys. So, get used to it. There was no-one left to ‘find him out’. He liked guys, and that was all there was to it.

Both men greeted Keith warmly and Greg encouraged him into the water. Blimey, it was cold but refreshing. Keith couldn’t help but notice what they looked like, neither was shy. Greg was tall, dark, well-built but in good shape, with a decent covering of hair, and a dick long enough to swing temptingly when he walked. Bart was slighter, and totally grey even though he wasn't yet 40, with a taut, completely smooth body and just a neat patch of trimmed grey pubes around his equally trim dick.

Keith tried not to look too much. But it was difficult not to; both men were, Keith had to admit to himself, attractive guys. He’d noticed a difference between them, beyond the obvious, Bart seemed to be circumcised and Greg not. Keith thought that was a religious thing, but perhaps not, and he certainly wasn’t going to ask. That would give the game away, that Keith had been examining and comparing their dicks.

And he certainly tried not to think about Greg and Bart looking at him that way; Keith was slight, very, very pale blond with pale, hairless skin, a patch of darker blond pubes and what Keith thought of as a medium-small cock. He was unaware of how cute his naked form could appear, and how attractive his shyness made him, creating a response in many of wanting to look after him. But part of his charm was that sense of unawareness, of naivety even.

Once out of the water Bart, who had declared the water far too cold and had not ventured in, handed them towels and then a glass of red wine. And then? There were so many questions Keith wanted to ask but daren't. To ask would be to admit publicly that he was interested in men, in gay men.